The concrete stairs made a dogleg midway down, eventually spilling onto the Riverwalk beside a series of blue canvas awnings that covered the ticket booths. The concrete promenade was deserted. Few people would venture down here after dark in a city with Chicago’s reputation. Kang saw no guards, but imagined they were foolishly on the boat with their charges — if there were any guards at all. Li had mentioned hiding in plain sight. A wise enough move, if one could pull it off.
The blue dot floated perhaps fifty meters ahead, beyond the booths, on the water.
Kang motioned the others forward, whispering orders as they stepped past. “Rose, watch for any guards patrolling above us at street level. Gao, keep your eyes on the cabin cruiser. I will watch the sailboat.” He repeated the orders he’d given when they first began. “Move quickly, cutting down any guards until you get to Li. If we can, take the woman first, alive. If not, kill Li and we will deal with them after.”
Wu Chao had been the one to insist they take Li alive for questioning. Kang only wanted to see him dead — preferably after he’d watched his wife suffer. Either way, Peter Li would die.
Gao gave a curt nod, professional, confident, but not overly so.
“Of course, sir,” Gao said, and raised his pistol to low ready. He knew his way around a pistol. Though he was new to the team, it was a Beretta as well. He’d checked when he joined, realizing the importance of the interoperability of weapons systems. It was good to have such a man on the team. Impressive.
Gao padded forward, crouching slightly as he passed the last ticket booth — directly into an oncoming bullet. His head snapped back, and he stood there, swaying, pistol clattering from his hands as they dropped to his sides.
Kang recognized the sound of suppressed gunfire immediately. He’d caused enough of it. But they were all moving quickly, and momentum carried him forward. He ran directly into Gao’s body as it toppled backward.
Rose went wide, firing twice at a form in the shadows ahead, behind a concrete planter. A round slammed into her hip. The injury chopped her sideways, sending her directly into the path of a bullet meant for Kang. Kang cursed, trying to push away, but he was too close. Rose crashed into him, clawing to keep her footing, knocking the pistol from his hand. He jumped for the flimsy cover of the ticket booths, anything to escape, but Rose grabbed him reflexively, staggered, firing blindly as she dragged him with her. Flashes of light told Kang the shooter was close, less than ten feet away — and alone.
He groped for Rose’s gun but missed, his hand failing to comply with the orders his brain sent. A burning pain told him something was wrong, but he was too busy to check. He yanked the pepper spray from his belt with his left hand, emptying the contents of the bottle toward the gunfire while he used Rose’s rapidly folding body as a shield. She realized what he was doing as she died, and did her best to protect him, catching at least two more bullets in the stomach.
Kang threw the empty bottle of pepper spray as his friend fell. Scuttling backward, he tripped over Gao’s body, his left hand brushing the man’s pistol and grabbing it. Scrambling to his feet amid more gunfire, he stumbled into a loping stride, running for his life — the second time in a week.
John Clark forced an eye open with his left thumb and forefinger while he played the front sight of his pistol across the area where the threat had been. Spray-and-pray was for the movies. Pistol ammo was too precious to lay down suppressive fire. Clark shot when he had a sight picture. He wore a hoodie and had turned sideways in time to avoid the full can of capsicum, but he got a large enough dose to make accurate shooting problematic.
He’d set up cameras at either end of the Michigan bridge and then a half-block down Wacker in either direction, allowing him to watch the team’s approach, with the added bonus of capturing their faces on video. Ever wary for more threats, he kept scanning after the other man ran, stepping out of his alcove just far enough to kick the pistols away from the two that were down. They looked dead, but he didn’t have the luxury of checking quite yet — and he’d seen human beings absorb a hell of a lot of lead before getting up to kill again.
Reasonably satisfied that no one else was going to shoot at him, Clark slipped Li’s cell phone into a small Faraday bag and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket.
